St. Vincent nearly made a heavy, Tool-inspired album

While we wait for the arrival of St. Vincent’s hugely anticipated funk-infused album, Daddy’s Home, Annie Clark has teased us with the original stylistic vision she had for the record.

As it happens, instead of making an album that draws from “sepia-toned downtown New York from 1971-1975”, St. Vincent had preliminary plans to make a “heavy record” inspired by Tool.

In a recent conversation with Radio.com’s New Arrivals with Bryce Segall (via Consequence of Sound), Clark confessed, “The crazy thing about music is, you can plan and plan and think you’re gonna go one way, and then you start writing and the music just takes you wherever the music takes you.

“That was certainly the experience with this,” she continues. “I was dead set in my mind that after Masseduction I was just gonna make this like, heavy record. Like, just heavy the whole time, like, ‘Hey kids, you like Tool? Well, you’ll love the St. Vincent record,’ you know?”

However, somewhere down the line Clark realized that she “didn’t have much to say there”, and decided to "go back to the music I’ve listened to more than anything else: stuff made in New York in the ’70s from ’71-'76". 

The first taste of this sound is apparent in the lead single from Daddy's Home, Pay Your Way in Pain, which can be heard below.

Despite the revelation, Clark’s admiration of Tool doesn’t come as much of a surprise, following her recent comments during a Guitar World roundtable, which featured the likes of Mateus Asato, Kirk Hammett, and Tool electric guitar wizard Adam Jones himself.

Commenting on her backstage covers of Forty 6 & 2, Clark said, “I fucking love Tool. I love Tool so much.”

Needless to say, the covers received Jones’s seal of approval, with the Tool legend responding, “I really liked it. I love all that stuff where people kind of have their own take on something. And especially, you know, people who can sing and play in an odd time. [Laughs] It’s wonderful.”

While the Tool-inspired album may not have materialized this time round, St. Vincent didn’t rule out the possibility of one cropping up somewhere down the line, saying, “For fans who may be selfishly hoping to hear something like that Tool record… we’ll get there, don’t worry.” 

All we can say is, count us in.